Embracing Unseen Strength: Lessons from Life’s Journey

I haven’t always been quiet. I haven’t always wanted to be unseen. At some point I discovered that mountains can be moved in the silence, and usually it is the unseen hand that changes the world. As I approach one of those milestone birthdays; and having left a toxic situation I have been reflecting on what I have done and where I am going. Have I achieved my goals? Have I made things better? Who have I hurt? Am I doing what needs to be done? What do I regret? What can I do to minimize my regrets? Do I have amends to make? What have I missed?

As I have been reflecting I have realized there are many odd things I don’t know about myself. I don’t know if I was pretty. I certainly wasn’t one of the popular girls, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are flawed or have a face and a body only a parent could love. I was raised by older parents so both my reference base and conversational choices were not generally things like “Isn’t Leif Garret just dreamy? ” they often were topics like “Can you believe fundamentalists have ousted the Shah and taken over Iran? How are all those women going to deal with the return to the stone age?” My family owned one of the towns major industries and my father was a once in a lifetime boss. You wanted to work for him. I never “had” to wear hand-me downs. Everything I had for the most part was new. I had a pony. I believed renting was a lifestyle choice, not a necessity. I didn’t realize I had a “place” a box I was supposed to fit into.

I didn’t know we were rich. I was continually told that we were poor, look at the Doctor look at the Lawyer. It never occured to me to think about the stories of scrimping and saving and question why they were all 30+ years old. It never occured to me that Hawaiian vacations were luxuries. New vehicles every year were the status quo in my world and if you hung on to a vehicle longer than two years it was because A. it was or was going to be a classic or B. you just really liked it. I didn’t know most people took out loans to buy vehicles and houses my dad alway just wrote a cheque. I knew nothing else.

While I can see why in many ways I was not wildly popular I don’t know if I was pretty. Pretty was not a value to be sought after. You couldn’t be pretty and smart you had to be one or the other. Pretty was one of the deadly sins. – Vanity. After university at my first “professional” job. I was in a bar enraged at a study that made the news saying pretty women were more often hired than their less aesthetically pleasing equally or better qualified sisters, As I, with venom in my voice and rage in my heart, ended my soap box argument, My boss looked at me and said ” Why are you so wound up about this, you are always going to have the advantage. Why are you arguing against your own interest?” I stood there with my mouth hanging open for two reasons 1. I am clearly arguing for what is right and good why would you not be as passionate about it as I am? Answer – he is a man and an a Ph.D this was trivia to him. 2. Was he implying I might be considered pretty? I was 27 years old at this point and the possibility had never occurred to me. I finally stammered.”What do you mean?” He said “you are pretty you will win”. My composed response was to break into a loud and ugly cry, in a neighbourhood pub and run to the bathroom. I managed to convince myself that he only said that because he wanted to sleep with me, I was smart, not pretty. The poor man was at a loss as what to do. He apologized and walked me to my car. He went back in paid the bill and left embarrassed as everyone glared at him- wondering what that mean old man might have done to that young women.

I won’t go on with ridiculous story after ridiculous story. From this more evolved and experianced side of my life here is what I know about my flaws and misunderstandings. The reason I would rather be unseen, the reasons I allow others to take my limelight. It was pointed out to me recently I have done amazing things, I have changed my part of the world for the better, and in a few instances I really have made a global difference. I have spent a lifetime doing without reflecting, because there is always one more mountain to climb, no time to stop and pat myself on the back – that would be slothful and arrogant.

I have believed that Humiliation was kindness and support.

Other things I have believed my whole life and only now am I able to really look and ponder –

Embarrassment for arrogance

Jealousy for love. or for my lack of ability

Silence for scorn or again my causing embarrassment to someone else.

Family for love and safetly.

Marriage for safety, love, and support.

Being notice for arrogance.

Being recognized for achievement was a moral failure

Poverty for lack of desire.

Independence for being unlovable

Tanacity was cruelty

Openness a cry for attention

Compassion was simply arrogance.

Today I own I have done great things, I have made a difference, I have changed lives, I have never given up I will no longer allow anyone else to calibrate my moral compass. I have made I life I am proud of. I do not want a parade or public proclamations. I don’t need anyone to tell me they are proud of me. I am proud of me. The air in the room does shift when I walk in without anyone knowing why – which is my great advantage. I have made peace with quietly accepting that I can make a difference and be great just for me no one needs to validate that.

I don’t have to fit into a box.

I don’t do what I do to be honour or rewarded. I do what I do because it brings me joy. To be able to tell the unseen, the unappreciated, and often the unwanted they make a difference, they are seen. How can they believe they truly do if I stand in there light and declare they matter because I said so. Absolutely that strokes my ego it changes nothing but your own personal hat size.

To have your hand on enough levers that you can tilt a playing field in favour of invisible, disenfranchised and disenchanted, to watch someone from afar and see them take their space, claim their identity and purpose; it is a transformative experience. I realize it was easy to make me believe I wasn’t doing it right, I wasn’t. Like Don Quixote I was chasing the accolades not the outcomes. To be genuine you need to be willing to remain unseen.

The applause with never be loud enough to fill the belly of the beast called Ego. Seeing a shadow become a fully realized valued member of their community. To see them embrace themselves and recognize their value is worth taking a moment to appreciate. It may leave ego hungary but your heart will burst with pride as you watch them take their place at the table. Ego won’t starve and Ego will find itself healthier for having missed a meal or two.

The irony all the erosion and dismissal of my achievements made me work harder, take bigger risks to try to be enough. The more I accomplished the farther away approval got. The less I reflected or appreciated that I had moved a big piece of that mountain the more Ego would tell me. “You didn’t do the work you just had the idea”. However, the idea was the work, or it is work that if I had done it the problem wouldn’t have been solved. Or ” It’s not like that was your idea, you just did the work.” As long as you look in someone else’s mirror you will alway be failing. Build your own box and quietly polish your own mirror, calibrate your own compass and every 60 years or so take a minute to appreciate what you have done.

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In the Dark

Hard times make us or break us.  While I believe I have seen more than my fair share of struggle and hard times. I know there is always  going to be someone with a sadder story, a darker past – someone who has lost more suffered more.  Someone whose life and karma have never been fair to.  I also know my hard is a first world hard and largely of my own design. How do we deal when the world is stacked against us.  How do we cope when everything seems to want to see us fail, to break our spirit? 

I seem to be a lightning rod for sad stories and a safe port in a storm for many.  If you have fallen on hard times – ask anyone who knows me – they will give you my number and I will do what I can.  Over the years it has cost me dearly – emotionally, financially  I have even lost friendships and reputation to people who frankly wound up not being worth the effort.  However, I believe if I don’t try,  if the world turns its back on potential, who knows what we have lost.  Sometimes, at least for me,  it  just took the right person at the right time to offer me the slimmest of threads of hope.  With that; just that tiny light I could muster the courage to carry on.  

In my darkest times I promise myself that if I can just get through the next minute, then 5, then 15, then 30 and so on; then I would be okay.  Sometimes the dark lasts a day, sometimes a week, often months and once nearly a decade. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I kept promising myself hope was just around the next corner.  

During my decade of struggle I had to push hard to make things happen.  The economy was in the toilet, jobs were few and far between, at most I seemed to manage contract work and campaign work.  I loved the work however, being a woman of child bearing years finding steady employment was a slog.  For the first 4 years they would ask at interviews if I had children.  About year 5 PC (politically correct) came into play – Sheila Copps passed a bill extending maternity leave and people were not able to ask about your children or desire to have them.  At this point women between 20 and 40 were  merely viewed with suspicion. Every part of me was scrutinised, I forgot to take off a necklace that had indeed been an invasion gift, I referred to my unborn children as aliens – as I felt a bit like John Hurt in the movie.  The interviewer told me my necklace was beautiful and asked if it had been a gift.  Of course still having “baby brain” and being a very proud first time mom I said yes and explained why I got it.  Needless to say the job went to a less qualified man about my age.

Times have changed – and things have gotten better but between postpartum, a terminally angry and entitled partner who measured everything in dollars and cents and being sidelined for propagating the race; I feel fortunate to have survived. 

It was not all darkness, like I said there was always that one person who at the right time would offer me that thread of hope.  When my partner got left holding the bag for two big contracts that were unpaid, and a bill at a supplier store was charged in his name; It was a professor who admired me that offered my financial assistance.  A stranger in a dog park, who offered to train my husband in a different line of work and sell him the company. A friend who would show up everyday and make me walk, myself, my child and my dog. A group of teenage girls who I had read to everyday for the previous 6 years who organised a child care schedule so at least once a week I could sleep as long as I needed to without having to get up with a crying child.   

A former boss who always managed to call when I was about to be crushed by an unforgiving system and would open the doors to let me plead my case and usually win.  

Eventually tides began to turn, however there were many hard lessons to learn.  Like no matter how brilliant I am. I am not a great employee in a big system.  I worked as a political organiser from the time I was 15 years old – that is a whole other story.  With my politics and where I live that often meant you got a big title, but no minions.  Until I had children I was a sought after organiser and right up to and including 9/11 I was working.  However that campaign made me realise my days as an organiser were done.  The candidate, the  tactics crossed into territory and were so ultra conservative I could not believe I was there, certainly my personal politics did not condon the messaging.  I had become a political slut. 

Thus began some of my darkest times.  That is when you realise that while History and Russian literature are fascinating and make you a delight at a cocktail party, partisan political experience, while good for the soul, is not really good on the resume.  There were entire years where I had to force myself to put out one resume a week. I could not handle the rejection of putting out more.  It truly was a struggle and often soul crushing.  My mental health was circling the drain.  I lost my belief in myself, I lost hope that I would ever find my path. I dreamed of a big life and instead all I could see was drudgery and being a little and meaningless cog in a big wheel.

It was in all that darkness that I finally accepted that perhaps I would never be Secretary General of the UN, or negotiate peace in the Middle East.  While working in rural communities at an environmental conference I met a man whose entire 40 year career had been simply to negotiate water rights on the Nile river.  Each and every time he had gotten all the agreements signed, a war, a coup or the formation of an entirely new country would nullify everything and he would have to start over.  I talked to him about how frustrating it must be never to achieve even a single step forward in your career.  His response was that he may never be able to win the race but he has created the path.   The next person will find the road a little easier and perhaps they will find the solution simply because he made the maps.

It was then I realised that demanding and expecting that I deserved the brass ring and all the gold and glory that come with it was perhaps not what I was destined for.  I may never be the trailblazer that is recorded in the annals of history or the first woman to… But maybe just maybe I could clear the path for that woman, or my son’s.  Perhaps I can whisper in her ear – “Just keep going Dear I believe in you.”  It is not always conquering Everest that makes you admired and appreciated – it is more often being the person who said to Sir Edmond Hillary – why of course you can climb Everest. I know you can do it, don’t be discouraged you have what it takes.

Hope, and success don’t always come with  a marching band leading a ticker tape parade in your honour. Hope and accomplishment are not always the throne or your name in the record books.  Accomplishment can be simply being the person who believes in the person who will stumble upon the big prize.  Not necessarily because they are looking but because you believed.

Once I let go of the hubris and accepted my greatest accomplishment might be giving my two sons the courage to pursue their passions and embrace themselves. Everything began to change.  Everything that I had been chasing- suddenly started chasing me.

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Loud Enough to be Heard

How do I speak in a voice loud enough to be heard?

In all relationships there should be compromise.  Somehow there always seems to be a dominant and submissive partner.  Being the person who believes what they are told and not what they see I always believed relationships were give and take – discussion and finding a middle ground.  

As an adult – married and in other relationships – I find this to not be so true.  None of my parents, siblings or aunts had these kinds of relationships. There was always one aggressively dominant partner and one who bent in the breeze.  I always admired the partner that was willing to bend.  The person who made the relationship work.  They always seemed to lead from behind. This was their gift and I had tremendous respect for that gift..  They quietly change the course of things quietly and without fan fare.  They were the people who flowed with the river.  They didn’t try to swim upstream.  The dominant partners  walk through life with boxing gloves on fighting it all.  They have hard boundaries that are respected.  Because to not respect the boxers boundaries no matter how absurd would create bedlam, and potentially blow the relationship apart with no end of trauma and drama.

Compromisers can have boundaries too – they can draw hard lines and they tend to have them respected.  They are few but everyone knows they are concrete.  It is an art and when it works it is a beautiful thing.  Compromisers bend; they change their course by picking moments, gently and quietly subverting some of the hard lines of the boxer.  Progress is often glacial but compromisers take the long view and can wait for the river to erode the hard lines and immutable personality.  The compromiser believes in the beauty of the road less travelled and is willing to see the possibilities of a different point of view.

Compromisers stand in the storm of derision and venom; they remain silent, or as silent as is possible.  They wait to pick their moment to have a rational conversation, to be loud enough to be heard.  A boxer’s storms can be loud, angry and at great volume with great grand gestures coupled with a few  outrageous lies.  A Boxer can and will weaponize a compromiser’s  every vulnerability and insecurity.  It is impossible to stand in the storm and not be wounded, crushed, battered and bruised but a compromiser’s heart is always  open and willing to forgive.  Their memories are long but willing to give grace to their boxer because their boxer’s love is bigger than their hurt.

While it is possible to withstand the storm – it is hard, be sure to take stock knowing who you are and your worth.  Be careful not to let the boxer erode your sense of value, hold tight to who you are – even if it’s just your secret..  Love yourself first, be able to be peaceful with your own company.  Boxers love the attention fighting the good fight, or being ringmaster of the circle affords them.  Boxers demand to be heard – they speak at volume and enter with fanfare. They are people magnets, and will often overwhelm people with their big emotions and bold actions.  But they can’t always reign in that big personality and certainly alone is not their happy place.  

Compromisers  and Boxers have to work really hard to get what they need.They need to learn to be comfortable in other ways, it often hurts and is hard. Most of all they need to learn to be heard, They need to know how to not lose themselves while giving themselves to someone who functions in foreign and tumultuous waters. The compromisers need to learn to speak loud enough to be heard in a constructive way and not a reactive way.  Boxers need to learn to be still and let go of the drive to win at all cost.    

Relationships are not individual sports – it is a team sport – and you will win as a team or lose as a team.  In relationships that fail no one walks away a winner.  They have lost time, they have lost a piece of themselves.  There will be trauma and hurt.  There will be loneliness and regret.  The best you can hope for is you have learned, and evolved.  You are a little wiser, and a little more resilient for the next time.  That you will be brave enough to let down your armour and love again. Be loud enough to be heard and still enough to listen.

When Compromisers and Boxers come together it can be an amazing thing. Boxers can raise you up. Loan you the passion and courage to reach beyond your grasp and be strong enough to ensure a soft landing should you fall short – or a ticker tape parade should you succeed.  Compromisers can temper the volatility and reactionary tendencies of Boxers.  They can focus Boxers on the longer game and bigger plan and show them the beauty of the small success.  Benders are by nature soft landings. They may not plan the ticker tape parade but they will quietly tell you how proud they are of your accomplishments and recognize it in a very personal way.  

On their worst days Compromisers and Boxers can tear one another apart.  They both look for the win one quickly and loudly – the other willing to spend a lifetime winning a ¼ inch at a time.  Both Compromisers  and Boxers will be the people you see walking in on your worst day – and offering all the help they have to give. 

This entry started off in a vastly different strain – it began in the middle of an ugly ugly fight.  And in this relationship because of its complexity and its long history of push and pull – admiration, respect, frustration, isolation, sorrow, heartache and ultimately love – the waves of anger and fear work themselves out – and the sun shines.  And you realise at the end of the day working together we can probably change the world should we decide to. I will never find a softer landing, a bigger cheerleader, and more love anywhere than I have here in this moment – with this person – in this lifetime.

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Loud Enough to Be Heard

In all relationships there should be compromise.  Somehow there always seems to be a dominant and submissive partner.  Being the person who believes what they are told and not what they see I always believed relationships were give and take – discussion and finding a middle ground.  

As an adult – married and in other relationships – I find this to not be so true.  None of my parents, siblings or aunts had these kinds of relationships. There was always one aggressively dominant partner and one who bent in the breeze.  I always admired the partner that was willing to bend.  The person who made the relationship work.  They always seemed to lead from behind. This was their gift and I had tremendous respect for that gift..  They quietly change the course of things quietly and without fan fare.  They were the people who flowed with the river.  They didn’t try to swim upstream.  The dominant partners  walk through life with boxing gloves on fighting it all.  They have hard boundaries that are respected.  Because to not respect the boxers boundaries no matter how absurd would create bedlam, and potentially blow the relationship apart with no end of trauma and drama.

Compromisers can have boundaries too – they can draw hard lines and they tend to have them respected.  They are few but everyone knows they are concrete.  It is an art and when it works it is a beautiful thing.  Compromisers bend; they change their course by picking moments, gently and quietly subverting some of the hard lines of the boxer.  Progress is often glacial but compromisers take the long view and can wait for the river to erode the hard lines and immutable personality.  The compromiser believes in the beauty of the road less travelled and is willing to see the possibilities of a different point of view.

Compromisers stand in the storm of derision and venom; they remain silent, or as silent as is possible.  They wait to pick their moment to have a rational conversation, to be loud enough to be heard.  A boxer’s storms can be loud, angry and at great volume with great grand gestures coupled with a few  outrageous lies.  A Boxer can and will weaponize a compromiser’s  every vulnerability and insecurity.  It is impossible to stand in the storm and not be wounded, crushed, battered and bruised but a compromiser’s heart is always  open and willing to forgive.  Their memories are long but willing to give grace to their boxer because their boxer’s love is bigger than their hurt.

While it is possible to withstand the storm – it is hard, be sure to take stock knowing who you are and your worth.  Be careful not to let the boxer erode your sense of value, hold tight to who you are – even if it’s just your secret..  Love yourself first, be able to be peaceful with your own company.  Boxers love the attention fighting the good fight, or being ringmaster of the circle affords them.  Boxers demand to be heard – they speak at volume and enter with fanfare. They are people magnets, and will often overwhelm people with their big emotions and bold actions.  But they can’t always reign in that big personality and certainly alone is not their happy place.  

Compromisers  and Boxers have to work really hard to get what they need.They need to learn to be comfortable in other ways, it often hurts and is hard. Most of all they need to learn to be heard, They need to know how to not lose themselves while giving themselves to someone who functions in foreign and tumultuous waters. The compromisers need to learn to speak loud enough to be heard in a constructive way and not a reactive way.  Boxers need to learn to be still and let go of the drive to win at all cost.    

Relationships are not individual sports – it is a team sport – and you will win as a team or lose as a team.  In relationships that fail no one walks away a winner.  They have lost time, they have lost a piece of themselves.  There will be trauma and hurt.  There will be loneliness and regret.  The best you can hope for is you have learned, and evolved.  You are a little wiser, and a little more resilient for the next time.  That you will be brave enough to let down your armour and love again. Be loud enough to be heard and still enough to listen.

When Compromisers and Boxers come together it can be an amazing thing. Boxers can raise you up. Loan you the passion and courage to reach beyond your grasp and be strong enough to ensure a soft landing should you fall short – or a ticker tape parade should you succeed.  Compromisers can temper the volatility and reactionary tendencies of Boxers.  They can focus Boxers on the longer game and bigger plan and show them the beauty of the small success.  Benders are by nature soft landings. They may not plan the ticker tape parade but they will quietly tell you how proud they are of your accomplishments and recognize it in a very personal way.  

On their worst days Compromisers and Boxers can tear one another apart.  They both look for the win one quickly and loudly – the other willing to spend a lifetime winning a ¼ inch at a time.  Both Compromisers  and Boxers will be the people you see walking in on your worst day – and offering all the help they have to give. 

This entry started off in a vastly different strain – it began in the middle of an ugly ugly fight.  And in this relationship because of its complexity and its long history of push and pull – admiration, respect, frustration, isolation, sorrow, heartache and ultimately love – the waves of anger and fear work themselves out – and the sun shines.  And you realise at the end of the day working together we can probably change the world should we decide to. I will never find a softer landing, a bigger cheerleader, and more love anywhere than I have here in this moment – with this person – in this lifetime.

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I Totally Forgot

I totally forgot I had started this site. The purpose was to review some of the stuff off my former blog – Severely Normal Working Mom- polish it and republish it spelling error free.

Sadly life happened – a very stressful job, the purchasing of a new business, the collapse of a former business, and needing to rebuild that. Then of course there is always the 10 things I want to do, skating, pottery, skiing, triathlons. The be all and end all is I forgot I owed this space- Is anyone out there- until the renewal notice showed up. So here we go. I don’t know what this Blog will wind up looking like. I do promise I will strive to be more mindful about contributing to it.

My interests run from politics to pottery – and most thing in-between. I strive to be honest with myself and try to not be a hypocrite. I grew up living with a self deluding parent, it left me confused about social behaviour, and distrustful of what people say to me and about me in my presence, as my parent would be kind and loving with people and then say the most awful things about people behind their back.

Writing has always been my best friend, by confidant and my constant companion. My writing does not judge me – and is always there for me when I need it. It accepts my unacceptable thoughts and helps me work through my frustrations – without judgement or recrimination.

I look forward to spending more time here – but for now I should answer other peoples emails and pay the renewal on this site!

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